


A study on grief and friendship

by lgbtimelord



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death, Character Study, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-16
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-31 02:30:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21050477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lgbtimelord/pseuds/lgbtimelord
Summary: Josie Saltzman died on a Saturday.





	A study on grief and friendship

Josie Saltzman died on a Saturday.

Regardless of everyone's attempts to break the twins' curse, they didn't find a cure.  
The fight wasn't bloody nor loud.  
The twins didn't fight.  
They tried going against the ritual and not fight each other.  
For a second it seemed it had worked. The full moon was passing and both Lizzie and Josie were still standing. The magic, said Lizzie months later, was aching to be used.  
The full moon passed and both the twins heartbeats were still strong.  
Everyone breathed out in relief.  
Until Josie fell to the floor.  
The screams of Lizzie's, Caroline's, Alaric's and Penelope's; would be sounds that'd always hunt Hope's dreams. The image of Lizzie running to her twin and trying to wake her up, to no vain, replaying in her nightmares. The soft prayers of Caroline and Alaric that she wouldn't have heard if it wasn't for her vampire hearing. The look of pure devastation on Penelope's face, the way she fell to the floor and she desperately grabbed the small red box on her hand until it broke.  
It took Caroline an hour to get Lizzie away from her sister's body. It took Hope another one to get Penelope away from it after.

* * *

The funeral was boring, both Penelope and Lizzie agreed on it. It was too simple. Too dull. Too much like it didn't matter and Josie didn't have the rest of her life to live. It'd been a simple ceremony, just family, Alaric had chosen. Caroline had a lost look on her face and didn't have the energy to look pointly at Alaric when he pourned himself the twelfth drink of the day. Lizzie turned around and left the moment they started playing jazz. Josie hated jazz. Penelope went after her and after screaming at each other for no actual reason but the fact that they missed Josie, they ended up hugging and crying in each other's arms. Hope found them like that and took them both to her house and forced them to bathe. They didn't talk for the rest of the day.

They threw a party on her honor that night. It was loud and big and everyone Josie ever loved was there. They made a bonfire in the middle of it and after Hope burned a paper with her favorite moment with Josie, everyone soon followed.

_She made me laugh for the first time in a long time._

_She helped me find my way to the classroom on my first day._

_She made me laugh so hard I cried once._

_She let me borrow her notes after I was sick._

_She loved me and let me love her in return._

_She was the best sister in the entire world._   
  


* * *

Some days were harder than others. Some days would feel endless and some days would feel like a blink of an eye.  
Some days Lizzie would forget and after waking up, she'd turn around to see Josie and find no one at the bed next to hers.  
Some days Penelope would forget and stretch her arms towards the emptiness in her bed Josie used to fill.  
Some days they'd used each other to get through it, they'd cry together and try to be there for the other. Josie would've want that.  
_She'd want us to help each other_, Penelope would think when she noticed the scars in Lizzie's arms that the magic no longer could cover up.  
_She'd want us to help each other_, Lizzie would think as she was holding Penelope's hair while the brunette was throwing up.   
_She'd want us to be there for each other_, Penelope would think when Lizzie tries to kick her out of the room while she's having an episode.  
_She'd want us to be there for each other_, Lizzie would think when she sees Penelope with that lost look on her eyes and asks her to stay the night with her.  
_She'd want us to be a family_, they both think but never say it out loud.  
"I miss her," one of them would whisper. Sometimes drunk, sometimes just sad.   
"Yeah, I miss her too."   
  


* * *

Three months after Josie's death, Penelope left. Without saying anything, she packed her bags and left during the night. It took her another three to return, sad eyes and longer hair but she seemed to be lighter so Hope didn't say anything about it.

"You left me," Lizzie, on the other hand, had a lot to say, "you left me alone, how could you do that?"

"Lizzie-" she tried to stop her when the glasses around them started shaking.

"No. I needed you and you left, you left me. Just like Josie." She finished softly.

"Oh, Lizzie." They hug and cry together for a while after that. Penelope promised not to leave again.   
She kept that promise.  
  


* * *

Hope and Lizzie start sleeping together not long after. Not having sex but pure and plain simple sleeping.

"I do this thing every day, I open my eyes and look around to where Josie's bed is supposed to be. Where _she_ is supposed to be. With Hope's arm around me I forget at first. And maybe I'm being selfish for finding ways to forget but I'd like to stay wrapped up around Hope for as long as she wants to too." Lizzie explains Penelope one night. They're sitting outside the school grounds, a bottle passing around between them. Lizzie drinks more than usual if so to make sure Penelope drinks a little less.

"You're not. Selfish, I mean. I'd do the same, if I could."

They stayed quiet after that.  
  


* * *

The day that marked one year since Josie's death, everyone forgot that it was Lizzie's birthday, too focused on what they lost and not on what it's still there. No one did anything special for Lizzie, except for Hope and Penelope. The first one woke her up with breakfast in bed and a small bracelet with a blue diamond which had a spell that casted away bad thoughts.  
The second one went, at Lizzie's request, with her to Josie's grave, it was the first time both of them had gone after the funeral. Penelope had always been too full to grief to even try to go and Lizzie's episodes wouldn't allow her to get too close before the images of Josie's dead body in her hands would make her and the ground her start shaking. So they went. Shaky hands intertwined. Penelope pulled back at the cemetery's gate and Lizzie tugged her forward. Some of the candles around the place started lighting up so Penelope squeezed Lizzie's hand a little more and the fires stopped.

"I'm sorry I haven't been here before." Lizzie said kneeling in front of Josie's grave. The grey rock with black letters on it seemed too dull and boring in comparison to Josie and her bright exterior. "It's been really hard but I'm promise I'm trying to be better. We all are." She continued looking back to Penelope, eyes red and tight voice. They both knew she wasn't really there, just a urn with the ashes of what used to be Josie but Lizzie told Penelope it'd bring her some peace to talk to her so she kneeled next to her, and took out from her bag two small cupcakes, she handed one to Lizzie and put the other one besides the grave.  
"Happy birthday, Jojo."  
  


* * *

They moved in together a couple of months later. Found a small two rooms apartment close enough to Alaric's for Lizzie to visit and close enough to the corner street library Penelope had opened. It was a simple life. Lizzie would go to work in the morning and return in the afternoon and start cooking dinner, Hope would join not long after to help her. Penelope would arrive much later but always in time for dinner- she knew Lizzie appreciated the calmness and order of routine- sometimes because she got caught up ordering the new books she'd received or in the one she was writing.

"Here again, Mikaelson? You know, I think you should start paying part of the rent." Penelope would say and it'd start hers and Lizzie's favorite activity: teasing the tribid.

"Or we could just go live in one of her oh so fancy mansions, don't you think babe?" Hope would always roll her eyes or laugh, she knew they needed this little moments of normalcy.  
Lizzie had told her once that moments in which she was laughing with Penelope would have seemed so surreal to her younger self that they made her forget what had led them to that. She added after, that Josie would have liked them being friends and regrets she hadn't seen it.

"So, "babe"? Are you two finally dating?" Penelope would ask once Hope had left.

"No. Yes. Maybe. No."

"Wow, you have such a clear answer."

"I just- I don't think I can do it."

"What? Being happy?," She continued- walking towards Lizzie and raising her hands to rest them on her shoulders- after Lizzie's heavy silence, "you deserve to be happy, Lizzie."

"So do you."

"Yeah," she said with a sad smile, "maybe one day."  
  


* * *

Loud knockings on her front door woke up Penelope two years later. Having moved out long ago, once Lizzie and Hope had made their relationship official and it was more like three people were living on the apartment rather than two. Living alone was quiet and sometimes lonely, she missed Lizzie's food- even if they had dinner together at least twice a week. She missed their long spontaneous talks and she even missed how Lizzie filled her comb with blonde hairs.  
"Penelope, open up." She'd learned to pick up on the different voices Lizzie has. Happy voice: loud and a bit high pitched. Sad voice: slow like she's too tired to even speak. Worried voice: questioning and cautions. Post-crying voice: slow, stuttery and horse. The voice at her door was the last one. She looked over to her clock and surprised herself at how early it was. She guessed Hope's plan hadn't gone to accordingly.  
When she opened the door Lizzie was clearly still on the clothes she'd wore to her date but her make up was smudged and all around her face.  
"She proposed-" her hands were shaking and Penelope took hold of them- "and I- I- I can't do it. She-"

"Do you not want to marry her?" She asked, knowing that in moments like this what the blonde needed was a calming voice to help her sort out her thoughts.

"Of course I do."

"So, this is about Josie." It wasn't a question.

"It's not fair."

"It's not fair for yourself to not allow yourself to be happy for what happened either."

Lizzie sighed, "I just made a mess, didn't I?"

Penelope smirked, "I'm sure Hope expected it. I mean, she _does_ want to marry you, she sure knows how dramatic you are." She made a face when Lizzie hit her in the arm.

"Do you..."

"Do I?"

"Are you really gonna make me ask you?" Penelope smirks and Lizzie rolls her eyes again, "do you want to be my maid of honor?"

"You sure Hope's gonna take you back now? Confident much, are we?"

"Asshole-" she said, punching Penelope with a pillow.  
  


* * *

"I met a girl," said Penelope one afternoon while they were doing wedding preparations.

"You did?" Lizzie stops on her tracks, "tell me everything."

"It's not a big deal."

"She's enough for you to mention her to me."

Penelope rolls her eyes. "She's nice."

"Wow, you're _so_ talkative today. Bring her to the wedding."

"It's not that serious."

"I don't care. If she makes you smile like that, I want to meet her."  
  


* * *

Two months after the wedding Penelope called Lizzie at three am. She untangled herself from Hope's arms and answered the phone.

"Penelope? Are you okay?"

"Do you think she'd be mad at me?"

"Who?"

"Josie." Lizzie takes a sharp breath. Her sister name's was more like a passing memory these days. The memory a little blurrier. The pain just a little bit weaker.

"For being happy? Of course not."

"I just- I thought there were all these steps, all this things, that I was supposed to do with Josie and..."

"And now?"

"I'm not so sure anymore."

"You should take your own advice and allow yourself to be happy, Penelope. Josie would've wanted that."  
  


* * *

They were standing on the school grounds again. It'd been years since Penelope had been there but Lizzie had asked her to come so she did. The blonde had finally left the town's kindergarten for the classroom full of magical children, she seemed happy about it. Penelope was sure it had something to do with being able to see her wife- the headmaster- every day too, but she didn't comment on it more than with a few teasing remarks.  
She looked at the hallways and remembered kissing Josie on that corner, and holding her hand on that hallway, and helping her carry her books on another one. Years ago she'd have looked at it with sadness but in that moment she just slightly smiled and thought fondly of it.  
She sat in front of Lizzie and Hope and after a few minutes of seeing the couple share some weird looks in front of her she asked, "Gonna tell me why I'm here any day soon?"  
Lizzie bit her lip and Hope let out a small laugh.  
"We-" said Hope interwining her fingers with Lizzie- "are having a child."

"What? Seriously? How?"

"Well," started Lizzie, "you know how it is, when two mommies love each other very much-"

"Lizzie!"

"Ok, ok, fine. But yes, we're adopting a baby."

"Oh my god. Congratulations." Penelope stood up to hug them and if the girls saw her rub the tears out of her eyes, they didn't mention it.

"Stop crying, I'm sure we'll have plenty of that with the baby." Hope stated, "That's not the only reason why we called you. We've found a way to have more time with your godson and-"

"Godson?"

"Well, yeah," Lizzie rolled her eyes, "don't think you can get away from this family so easily."

"As I was saying," Hope continued, "we both want to stay here as teachers and with you as the school's headmaster."

"Seriously?"

"Has age finally caught up to you, Park? You're repeating a lot today."

"Shut up Saltzman, it's just a lot at the same time."

Lizzie snorted, "it's Mikaelson-" she said holding out her hand to show the ring on it- "but this isn't decided yet, you can say no."

"No, no. I want it, I want this."  
  


* * *

"Do you know why I came back that night?" Penelope said and turned back to watch their kids playing on the garden; Niklaus Mikaelson II and little Josephine Park, playing on the small sand box of the Mikaelsons' house. It took Lizzie a moment to realize what moment she was talking about.

"Yeah, you never told me where you went." She searched for something on Penelope's face, something that might give away where the conversation was going but the brunette was still looking over to the garden.

"I went back to Belgium. I'd met a witch there, she'd told me my future looked bright and told me the letter J was important. So when Josie died I was _so_ mad because she'd lied to me," she took a deep breath, "she said she hadn't lied, that the light was still coming. It seemed so unrealistic then, to think about a world without Josie on it. Sometimes it still is."

There's silence for a moment after that, "Josephine," Lizzie said, "your daughter, that was the light."

"Yeah, her mother too," she wiped the tears forming on her eyes, "the funny thing is that we named her after Josie."

Lizzie let out a dry laugh, "Yeah we guessed." They look back at their children, running and laughing around and smiled.  
"I miss her too, you know?" Lizzie says after a second, "I think part of me will always miss her."

"Well, you were here twin so-"

"You two loved each other more than anything, you shouldn't pretend that wasn't big."

She sighed, "You're right. She'd be proud of us though."

"The head bitch in charge and Satan as best friends? She would have never had imagined it."  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Come scream at me on Twitter @lgbtimelord


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